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English
Welcome to the Kirby School English Department The purpose of writing is to communicate to others what we see or think. Language is the way we translate our thinking so that others are affected in the way we want them to be. In this way, we distinguish writing from a mere listing of information or thoughts. Rather, it is the conscious employment of techniques to create a specific product. When we write, we have an audience in mind and a goal, so that we hope to make ourselves felt in some way: move someone to change their thinking, to understand why a memory is important, to comprehend the intricacies of a process, to laugh or cry. perhaps to mourn with us. For all the mystery of writing, there is a method to its madness. To become skilled at expressing ourselves, it is necessary to learn the language of language, its terms and techniques, its strategies and nuances. Some have a natural facility with words, but everyone--once acquainted with how composition works--can learn the skills. Writing Types * Analytic Essay: Explication of an object or idea, detailing how it works * Experiential Essay: First-person writing based on the author's immersion in an event ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Expository Essay: ''Informational essay, frequently based on research of a specific topic ** Professional samples ** Student samples * ''Familiar Essay: Essay based on an object or activity and combines research with personal reflections ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Humor Essay: ''A memoir that employs a humorous tone ** Professional samples ** Student samples * ''Imitative Essay: Writing that imitates the characteristics or style of a specific author or a type of writing * Memoir: Personal memory centered around a single or series of anecdotes ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Location Essay: ''Evocation of a dominant impression of a specific locale ** Professional samples ** Student samples * ''Persuasive Essay: Essay that explores a specific topic and advocates action ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Profile: Depiction of a person that combines interview, research, and observation ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Reflective Essay: A personal essay usually based on an anecdote or anecdotes that implies an observation ** Professional samples ** Student samples * Travel Essay: In-depth profile of a place that includes observation, interview, and research ** Professional samples ** Student samples Structures In addition to the structures described on the Home Page, the English Department teaches structures oriented toward a variety of essay and fictional writing. A structure is most effective when it comes out of the material. It is a clear choice about the order and manner of the way you want your reader to engage with your material and ideas. Sometimes it is best that the reader know clearly and soon what your piece is about. Other times, it may serve you as the writer to withhold your thinking/ideas/themes until you've established some foundational work. You might want to present your material chronologically and in a clear order. Other times, it may serve your purposes to arrange your presentation from multiple perspectives or varying tones to achieve a particular effect. In this way, we understand that structure is to focus what a map is to a journey: its construction enables the viewer to begin at a particular spot and proceed clearly to a destination. Structure is the way we guide the reader from our intro through our development of a focus to a conclusion that sounds both logical and inevitable. * Chronologic structures: Chronologic structures are time-based, meaning they following a sequence of events. In a straight narrative, the paper follows an event or story from the opening action to the conclusion. More commonly, writers use a shifted narrative, jumbling the order of events, such as beginning a story at an emotional high point and then filling in the events that led up to it, or using a flashback to step back briefly in time. * Idea-based structures: Idea-based structures are ordered around an idea or concept that acts like a golden thread to hold the piece together. More formal and analytic papers are organized around ideas that progress in importance. Essays that are more free form often employ an associational '''structure, as the writer follows one idea to another, tracing an idea as it evolves and shifts. Writings deal with physical space sometimes employ a '''spatial structure, moving from one item to another as each space is connected by proximity. Finally, inductive structures usually open with a particular item that symbolizes or suggests a larger idea the rest of the writing will explore. For instance, in an analytic essay, the writer might introduce an event, person, or quote that operates as a significant example of a larger idea. In a personal essay, for example, the writer might open with an anecdote that summarizes his/her life or views on a topic. In this way, the inductive structure combines a "zoom in" with a "zoom out," so that the item zoomed in on is shown to represent the item it is a small part of. * Comparison-based structures: The point of a comparison-based essay is to examine something within a larger context. We do not understand something from one perspective as well as we do when adding additional perspectives. In a comparison'structure, we use two or more examples to explore or define an idea. If we want to explore the concept of beauty in the Classical era, for example, we might the fifth century Greek statue Kritios Boy with the fourth century Venus de Knidos. Comparing the way they differ in their beauty (idealized depiction of masculine youth versus a more natural view of the female body) would demonstrate how Greek values shifted in just a few decades from beauty as rooted in perfection to beauty as something found in the everyday world. A similar structure employs a'continuum, wherein we place several examples are arranged from one extreme to the other. For example, to use our example about beauty in Classical Greek times, we might introduce a third example, the third century sculpture titled Market Woman. There is nothing divine or perfect about this character; her body shows the wear of aging and earthly troubles, making her the opposite of Kritios Boy. So we might make a continuum about the depiction of beauty from perfection to realism, placing Kritios Boy at one extreme, the Market Woman at the other, and Venus de Knidosin the middle. Such a structure enables us to develop our thesis: As Greece rose and then declined, its vision of the universe shifted away from an ideal state to a world of decay and strife. * Contrast-based structures: If comparison structures explore ideas between seemingly similar examples, contrast-based structures deliberately challenge us to make sense of very different things. Such structures are more prevalent in fiction where writers can vary tone, style, even genre to tease out the connection between vastly different states. This latter approach is called a pastiche structure, suggesting that the author is combining a collection of different styles. Novelist David Mitchell used a pastiche structure to organize his recent novel, Cloud Atlas (which was also made into a movie), a long work made up of six smaller novels, each written in the style of a different genre: travelogue, mystery, science fiction, dystopian, etc. Mitchell's golden thread is a set of names and actions that recur throughout the novel, suggesting that for all our differences over the centuries, humanity is drive by the same needs for freedom. A second kind of contrasting structure is fragmented '''or episodic', where the author abandons transitions or connecting ideas, opting instead to juxtapose sections without explanation. This is often used in modern poetry, as in the work of T.S. Eliot, when the author intends to created a sense of disconnectedness or alienation. Finally, an'interwoven''' structure alternates back and forth between two perspectives. John Steinbeck utilized this format in The Grapes of Wrath, alternating chapters between the individual story of the Joad family and the larger story of the Midwestern migration. For more information about structure formats, click here. Additional Materials To see the English Department's Scope and Sequence, click here.